We were so excited because Tony was coming to school to show us his vintage car.  It was a 1917 Dodge Tourer made in the USA.  We had lots of questions about Tony's car.  We found out it uses regular petrol, it has no key, there are only windows at the front, it only has back brakes, its roof goes off and on, it was restored by someone else, it can't go in the rain because the brakes get wet and won't work, where the petrol went, the floor was wooden and could come out, there is a spare wheel on the back in case you got a puncture, and it had wooden wheels with metal rims.
The thing we loved the most was we got to sit in it and honk the horn.  We also liked seeing the roof go on and off.

Logan Park High School Sports Day

On Friday some Year 12 students from Logan Park High School came to our school.  They came to teach us sports.  We had a go at indoor and outdoor hockey, soccer, basketball, touch rugby, running and netball.  We played octopus, duck duck goose, fruit salad, candle sticks, ladders and rats and cats.  We loved sports day our favourite things to do were playing outdoor hockey, playing indoor hockey, playing rob the nest, basketball, hot potatoe and a game where we sat in a circle and we ran around and squeezed a cool whistle.  Next year we would love to learn cricket, table tennis, softball and badminton.

New World Mini Collectables

The children at North East Valley Normal School are very excited because today we are having a mini collectables swap.  We love mini collectables because they are so cute, they are well made, they are fun to play with, they are realistic, you can play shops and you get to use play money.  The best thing about having a swap is we will be able to help each other to collect a whole set.  Lots of kids in our class are close to having a whole set.  Riley only needs 4 things, Jack needs one it is potatoes, Lola needs three, Lochlan needs the fruit and tomatoes, hopefully someone in our school has what we need.

Sound Paintings

The music started softly we dipped our paintbrushes in the paint and splashed paint softly on our pages.  The music got louder we made hard, scary looking strokes with the paint.  The music got faster we painted faster.  The music got higher and scarier we tried to use our brushes in different ways to show how the music sounded.  We turned the brushes upside down and used them to draw in the paint.  We made sound paintings.  Today we are going to use our paintings to do some weaving for our calendar art work.

Junior School Musical

Rooms 8, 10, 11 and 13 have been busy practicing our singing for the junior show.  We have been learning to sing a song called "Friends are all you need" because the story is about needing your friends.  We also have been singing "Put a little love in your heart". 
Room 8 have been working on our animal movements for our dance.  We are going to be monkeys in the show.  We have been practicing our dance moves.

Dancing

The junior school musical is this term and Room 8 have been hard at work dancing.  Here we are moving around our class like elephants.  We are trying to use our bodies in different ways and at different levels.

Bangers

Today Room 8 experimented with making sounds with paper.  We made origami paper bangers, they were a little bit tricky and we had to try really hard to concentrate on the instructions.  Here are Finn, Jack and Troy to show us how they work.

Where the wild things are

We read 'Where the wild things are' By Maurice Sendak. We looked at the illustrations to see the way texture was used in the pictures. We also looked at all the different expressions on the wild things faces. We drew our own wild things with different expressions. Then we drew our favourite one and we coloured them with pastel. Yesterday we drew big wild thing faces with different expressions and lots of texture. Today we are going to add crayon to the texture and then paint over them in watercolour paint.

Keep Dunedin Beautiful

We went to a show in our school hall yesterday called Keep Dunedin Beautiful. The show was about 3 girls who had a homework challenge to do and they decided to do their homework about looking after the environment. They found out that their parents were superheroes who were helping to keep the earth clean. There was Eco girl, the reducer and recycle man. Eco girl liked to pick up rubbish. The reducer liked to reduce waste. Recycle man was good at recycling. We learnt that we can help look after the planet..... By recycling By reducing our packaging By not littering Always be right turn off the light Don't just use something once use it twice They taught us rhymes and songs to remember to keep dunedin beuatiful We also learnt that the energy used to produce one plastic throw away drink bottle could power a lightbulb for 6 hours.

Changes in Room 8

When we came back to school some things had changed around in our classroom so we had more room to work together. We can now all fit easily around the computers and there is more room to move in our library corner. We also have a new reward system in Room 8. We are collecting points for our whole group working together on things like, being respectful, getting on with our tasks, following instructions and being good friends. We also have a cool new classmate Xavier. Xavier has come to NEVN from Port Chalmers School. He has already made friends with Lochy and they have been having a great time together playing with a basketball and rugby ball in the playground. We also have a great new College Teacher, Miss Pretorius. She is going to be in Room 8 for the rest of the year! We can't wait to get to know her and to have her teach us some new things.

Toys and Games

We have been learning about toys and games. We learnt that lots of the toys we like today have been around a very long time. We went Toitu to learn about toys and games with Danny. We played a gmae of marbles and learnt how to flick them. Danny took us to an olden days hut where a long time ago four children lived, on rainy days they could only stay inside, they played marbles and with a yoyo. At the end we had some free time to play with dominoes, jack straws, puppets, skipping ropes, yoyo's, dolls house, washing line, ironing board, tiddlywinks and bingo. Ben's favourite part of the whole trip was the hut, Ryan and Jack liked the marbles, Lola liked dressing up, Harriet liked playing puppets, Nanaia liked bingo, and Troy like the dominoes!

Harold the Giraffe

We went to visit Harold in the mobile classroom. We learnt about being safe. We met Mr Possum he was funny because when Richard stroked his back he made funny faces and wiggled his arms. He cleaned himself by licking his paws and rubbing his face. We learnt possums are nocturnal. He was teaching us about safety, putting on our helmets when we ride our bikes and being careful in the playground. We got to put on our own puppets there were frogs, cows, penguin, albatross, kiwi, whale, owl, kea and a ladybug. Poor ladybug broke her eye. She had to go to the hospital.

Strike

Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.

Room 8's Space Discoveries

We have been learning about space. We made a rocket ship to read books in at reading time. We have made some cool sun artwork and we have been learning how the earth and moon rotate around the sun. The moon goes around the earth. The sun is a star. We learnt that mecury goes fastest around the sun and has an iron core. We learnt that mars has a red spot that is twice the size of earth, it has sandstorms and giant volcanoes. We learnt that venus is the only planet that turns clockwise. We learnt that pluto is a dwarf planet. Earth is the only planet that you could live on. We learnt that saturn is the second largest planet.

Firewise

We were lucky enough to have a visit from our local firemen as part of our firewise work. Here is Max's writing about the visit. Yesterday a fire engine came to school. Brad put on a breathing apparatus he sounded like an alien from planet Zeutron. the water shot out of the hose. The further you tilted the house the further the water went. It went so far it hit the road! The truck had lots of levers and gadgets on it. When the air ran out on the fire suit Brad pressed a button and more air came into the can. Brad knew when the air ran out because he had a special dial. I liked to squirt the hose because not many kids get to do it. By Max

Welcome!

Kia ora everyone and welcome to 2013 in Room 8! We had a great first week back at school last week, even though the weather was very hot! The children are settling in nicely and making our new students Lochy and Dennis feel very welcome. Don't forget you can follow our blog so you can keep up with all our news :)